This Is The Moment
by Phoenixflames12
Summary: Jehan's thoughts on the meaning and aspirations of the revolution in the moments before his death. One shot. Please feel free to read and review! Much love and enjoy x (Chapter title stolen from the song 'This Is The Moment' from the 90s musical 'Jekyll and Hyde.')


_**Yes, I've done it. A Jehan death fic for your consideration and also to help me try and believe in my writing a bit more because I'm suffering a severe case of writers block with regards to 'Fallen Angels' and would really love some prompts!**_

_**Chapter title shamelessly stolen by the song of the same name from the musical 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'.**_

_**Disclaimer: As I am not Male, French or living in C19th Paris- how can I possibly own Les Miserables? I am simply trying to convey my love for Victor Hugo's epic masterpiece into something cohesive- please don't sue me!**_

* * *

This Is The Moment 

'_If you wish to know what revolution is, call it progress. If you wish to know what progress is, call it tomorrow'- Victor Hugo (Les Miserables)_

'Any last words, _traitor_?' The sneering snarl of the National Guard cuts through the darkness of the blindfold, the stabbing pains coursing up and down his left ankle as he struggles to remain upright; desperately trying to remain unafraid and yet painfully aware that a whole rapport of bayonets are trained on him. Painfully aware that he is alone, that in the chaos and confusion of the first attack his friends, his beloved comrades, his brothers in all but blood have no idea of his capture and now will probably never see his death. _Enjolras… Combeferre… Feuilly…Joly… Bossuet… Bahorel… Grantaire… Gavroche… Marius… Courfeyrac…_ A sudden, sobbing breath catches in his throat at the thought of the living, laughing, loving centre with his crown of ebony curls and glittering hazel eyes sparked through the fiery lights like that of a dying sunset. _Oh Courfeyrac… 'Feyrac… I'm sorry… _

He can feel the weight of his hair falling into his face; the stink of blood, sweat, rain, gunpowder and freedom embracing him as he pushes his shivering body further up the wall, a breathy wince of pain escaping his lips before he can stop it. A breath that to his ears feels far too much like a whimper, a plea for help that will come too late or will not come at all and nothing like the proud, fearless revolutionary he so aspires to be. If he is to die, he will die upright, facing his foes, facing these men who are lost in darkness and cannot or do not want to acknowledge the light which their flickering, bursting flames of revolutionary progress strive to bring.

He can feel the weight of the blindfold tied too tight around his eyes, the bitter bite of rope cutting painfully into the tender flesh of his wrists; the fading ink stains of a last, hastily scribbled verse crawling over the back of his hands as he waits. He can feel the weight of the words on his tongue, ringing words that will destroy this old world of hateful, prideful tyranny with their fiery passionate hope for freedom.

'_I'll gather up my past for thee, my love and make some sense at last…' _

A faint breeze rustles through the sticky, oppressive air that is thick with the stench of blood and gunpowder and that, for some inexplicable reason makes a slight smile tug cautiously at the corners of his lips. He wishes he could see it, wishes he could feel it, taste it one last time, but he also knows that like Keats, like Byron, like all the Romantic poets whom he reveres with all his heart; that his life, like Bahorel's, like the gamine girl with the wide, dark, haunted eyes whom he had seen lit up in a blaze of fire before he got pulled away mean nothing and are worth as little as those of the butterflies; lasting but three summer sun kissed days.

Without warning he thinks of Bahorel; of the fighter's wide, battered face, of the small, dark eyes ablaze with the flames of progress as he watched Enjolras standing atop a table of the Musain or the Corinth; hanging onto every word that fell from that glorious silver tongue of rhetoric as the lights seemed to catch him, caress him, ignite him until he burnt with the very fires of Liberty. _Oh Bahorel… Bahorel… We'll see each other soon Mon Ami… _

He doesn't hear the sudden, icily metallic click of the sea of bayonets trained in front of him. Doesn't hear his own rasping intake of breath as his heart suddenly stills and then picks up, straining against his ribcage in a desperate, thudding rhythm against his chest as he exhales slowly, savouring each pull of oxygen into his lungs. He thinks of thick, calloused fingers entwined within his hair, carefully twining the mane of auburn into his customary braid, can almost smell the lingering scent of coffee and cinnamon enfolding him like a second skin. _Courfeyrac…_

A spiking sear of pain cuts through his injured ankle and he sways painfully, bound hands reaching blindly for something to steady himself with. Biting his lip so hard he can feel blood blooming over his teeth, he pulls himself up straighter; glaring through the dark cloth blinding him at what he thinks is the officer whose words first sliced through the silence and knows that his time has come. Knows that Fate has made ready her shears and is weighing up his fragile thread of life, pondering his worthiness to remain on an Earth where this is so much wrong, so much pain, so much hatred that has tried again and again to drown him and his comrades into the depths of despair for the fate of their beloved Patria.

A deafening shout shatters the silence at just the same time as the barking command of the officer rings through the air complete with the click of leveed bayonets. _'We have a hostage too! Don't shoot!'_ His heart twists painfully in his chest at the sound of the voice. It's Combeferre that much he knows, but he also knows that the desperate plea locked deep within the guide's voice will have little effect on these guards and their destined task. On his own destiny which hangs so perilously in the balance, forever swinging to disaster and back again.

The army officer who initially pronounced his death sentence takes no notice of Combeferre's futile pleading, instead choosing to brush it off as if it were nothing more than an irritating fly or the pleas of a particularly filthy gamin child begging for bread in the depths of the artic Parisian winter.

A moment of pause. A moment of complete calmness and stillness in which, if he listens hard enough he can still hear the twinkling laughter of his little sisters Emilie and Juliette as they splashed about in the brook at the bottom of the farmhouse; shrieking with delight when the water splashed up at their knees, soaking the hems of their cotton summer dresses.

His sacrifice will be for them, he decides in that moment. His sacrifice will be for them and for the countless others like them, the countless gamin children and broken, fallen grisettes he sees shivering in dark doorways on his way to the University or a meeting in Musain or the Corinth; desperately trying to evade the frigid bite of the winter's chill. His sacrifice will be for the woman Combeferre described sitting alone in her candlelit garret; watching the sky, wishing, hoping that come morning her loved one would return to her waiting embrace safe and unharmed from the insurrection.

Time itself seems to slow down.

His heart thumps frantically against his chest but the futile hammering of the tiny organ means nothing to him now.

Blindly his eyes search for the presence of his friends, wanting, wishing that they would know that even if he was not there with them in the physical sense, he would remain with them forever; locked deep within the very spirit of the revolution.

With one last effort, he forces his head up; imagining a shaft of brilliant summer sunlight bathing his face as he does so; not the heavy, rain soaked clouds that have encloaked Paris like a great, invisible fog.

'_Any last words, traitor?'_

Despite everything, a final smile tugs at the corners of his mouth as the slogan dances on his tongue, the silver words bursting with fire and life and hope and liberty.

A barked command.

A shout.

A roar of panicked rage.

A blaze of pain that suddenly erupts through his chest, catching him, threatening to pull him under into the dark dankness of oblivion. The pain seems to consume his very soul as he struggles to form the final shout for his beloved country, for his beloved comrades.

A steady, crushing darkness seems to be dragging itself over his brain as the pain increases and he has to force himself to think, pushing painfully against the sudden onslaught of agony that threatens to drown him with every passing second he waits.

One last time.

One last shot.

_Enjolras. Combeferre. Courfeyrac. Joly. Bahorel. Bossuet. Grantaire. Feuilly. Marius. Gavroche. Father Mabeuf. The white haired stranger from earlier with the dark eyes which spoke of such hardship, which none of them had ever truly known and now would never truly know._ So many lives. So many lives filled with such bright, hopeful potential only to be sliced short by the stab of a bayonet or the rattle of the rifle chorus.

'_The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to die.'_

Enjolras' last words on the barricade before the attack seem to catch at his heart, filling him with what feels like courage as he hears the faint click of safety catches being released and knows that his time has come.

Knowing that Fate has decided his time and yet pulling himself up to his full height, he squares his shoulders, his final verse reverberates across the suddenly eerily silent space that separates the barricades. A verse that spoke of courage, of light and life and hope as the glorious future shone in a light far too dazzling for mortal's eyes as his own life was snatched away from him.

'_Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the Future!'_

_**Fin**  
_

* * *

**_Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!_**

**_Much love and enjoy x_**


End file.
